It seems like almost everyone in Big Business is looking for a bailout these days. That's certainly true of several big brand media companies who, according to an AdAge article today, have told Google they deserve higher rankings in Google's search results. Not only that, but one executive has also labeled the rest of the content-producing web -- including bloggers like us -- as "parasites" who "benefit disproportionately" from Google's ranking algorithm. This collection of media companies, AdAge reports, includes The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Inc, Hearst, ESPN, and othe [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Critics | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Top News

TechCrunch has a guest article today about internet advertising that sounded interesting until I got to the part about search ads as "misdirection." At that point, I realized the author apparently knows little about search advertising -- and since that's the bulk of online advertising sold, it put into serious question anything he had to say about online advertising overall. Unfortunately, I won't get a refund for the time I wasted reading through his article. Even worse, it infuriated me enough to waste even more time to point out the errors in it. Normally I just try to ignore stuff [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Features: Analysis | Google: Critics | Search Ads: General | Top News

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Ex-Googler: Google Depends Too Much On Data Over Instinct For DesignDoes Google depend too much on data over design instinct? Yes, says former Googler Douglas Bowman, who posted a goodbye note to the company on his last day there today. From his post: Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out of [...] Microsoft IE8 Browser Seeks To ‘Accelerate’ [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Does Google depend too much on data over design instinct? Yes, says former Googler Douglas Bowman, who posted a goodbye note to the company on his last day there today. From his post: Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out of reasons for design decisions. With every new design decision, critics cry foul. Without conviction, doubt creeps in. Instincts fail. "Is this the right move?" When a company is filled with engineers, it turns to engineering to solve problems. Reduce each decision to a simple l [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Employees | Google: User Interface

Microsoft's new browser IE 8 is now in general release. There are loads of features, which I won't go into at length. Danny did a preliminary overview of the search and ad-related features of IE8 already, which I'm sure he'll revisit at some point. And the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg offers a generally favorable review, but has some complaints about speed. The two things I'm going to discuss in this post are Microsoft's "Live Search Accelerators" and Yahoo's new "visual search shortcuts." Live Search Accelerators perform a range of functions, searches or lookups on, for example, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Internet Explorer | Yahoo: Shortcuts

In this week's Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Eric Schmidt with Charlie Rose: Google & Mozilla: St Patricks Day at Yahoo: PHP Stuffed Animal at Yahoo! Dome in Japan: [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Search In Pictures

Today in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the first day of Spring. The search engines, excluding Yahoo, have special logos for the day. Let me share them with you. Google's logo was designed by Eric Carle: AOL has a Flash animated logo: [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Microsoft: Bing | SEM Industry: Community

The Live Search blog posted a comprehensive guide on how to determine if your site is penalized in Live Search and if so, what actions you can take to remedy the issue. I'll highlight some of the key points in this excellent blog post. Microsoft said, "most webmasters who get penalized know why it happened." First confirm your site is penalized by validating your site at Live Search Webmaster Tools and then clicking on the Summary tool and then the Site status section. Blocked "Yes" means you are penalized. Figure out what you did wrong by using the various tools to see your crawl issue [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing SEO | SEO: Spamming

You can get more than just links from social media. You can also get really great content. And one of the best places to find free content is on Flickr. There are tons of ways to use Flickr. If you can take a great photo, you can use Flickr to build inbound links and get your photos showing up in places like Consumerist and Epicenter. You can use Flickr's comment area to build links that drive traffic and exposure. However, one of my favorite ways to use the site is to follow a link AND content development strategy. And that's what this article is about helping you learn to do. I'll sta [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | How To: Links | Social Media Marketing | Top News | Yahoo: Flickr

For over 10 years, I have been trying to convince my clients, colleagues, friends, family, and my 2 cats that SEO and website usability go hand in hand, that they are intricately related. And I have even chastised colleagues and clients for not considering users during the optimization process. I have seen many of my SEO colleagues work very hard to understand website usability. But I am not seeing many website usability professionals trying to understand search engine optimization, dismissing many of us as snake-oil salesman and some other colorful descriptions. It is time for usability p [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content | Search & Usability

This bundle includes research and best practices from: MarketingSherpa - 2009 SEM Benchmark Guide Jupiter Research - Making Sense of the Data Overload Omniture - 2009 SEM Readiness Assessment Download the Complimentary Bundle Now [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Sponsor Messages

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: ‘Google Mistrial’ - Is Search Getting In The Way Of Justice?Ask around and you probably won’t find many people who think the idea of “Internet everywhere” is a bad thing. Thanks to laptops and smart phones, wi-fi and 3G, we can work (or play) at airports, check email during cab rides, and compare prices online from any department store. We can Google anyone or anything [...] Microsoft Demo Fest Shows Off New Ideas, Repor [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

Ask around and you probably won't find many people who think the idea of "Internet everywhere" is a bad thing. Thanks to laptops and smart phones, wi-fi and 3G, we can work (or play) at airports, check email during cab rides, and compare prices online from any department store. We can Google anyone or anything from anywhere, and turn around and broadcast what we find on Facebook, Twitter, or our blogs. Who's complaining? Pretty much everyone in the U.S. legal system, at least this week. The New York Times has coined a new term: the "Google mistrial." It reflects the growing number o [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: General | Google: Web Search | Legal: General | Search & Society: General | Top News

Last month, Microsoft researchers from around the world showed off some of their most unique creations at the company's TechFest 2009 event in Redmond. This month, a smaller group of Microsoft researchers took part in the 5th "Demo Fest" event -- a smaller event that's designed for researchers from adCenter Labs to show off their latest ideas. The company let reporters in on Wednesday to see four of the new Demo Fest technologies, and the Seattle Times' writer was not impressed. "The demos I saw were not jaw-dropping. The concepts seemed to echo things we'd seen elsewhere or things I w [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Microsoft: Other Search

The Yahoo Search Blog announced they have added additional filter options to Yahoo Image Search. You can now filter Yahoo Images by size, color, specific dimensions and even if it is from Flickr or not. For example, a search on grass allows you to click on "More filters." When you click on it, these options all appear. Here is a screen capture: Google recently added the option to filter images by specific dimensions as well. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Yahoo: Images

Sony, Google Challenge Amazo from the Wall Street Journal reports that Google is providing more than half-a-million public domain books to Sony, to offer on Sony's digital book reader. Google Book Search has digitized millions of books and the partnership gives Sony users free access to these 500,000 public domain books in the Sony eBook store. Steve Haber, Sony Electronics' president told the WSJ, "We believe the more content that is allowed access to the device, the better value it is to our customers." This may give Sony a bit of a competitive edge against Amazon's popular book reade [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Book Search

Google has released a bunch of new Street View images for cities in the UK and The Netherlands. Google Blogoscoped has a list of the UK cities. But you can just as easily drag "peg man" onto a UK or European map on Google and see the coverage. Recently Google added user photos to Street View. The Google Earth Blog noticed that as you pan around the map, the selection of user photos changes in real time to reflect the changed position on the map. See, for example, the window in the upper right in these two slightly different views of Parliament in London: Over in Canada, direc [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Outside US | Top News

Most books on search marketing focus on either the technical aspects of SEO or paid search, or on how to adapt traditional marketing strategies to the web. Web Design For ROI, by Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus, is unique in its sharp focus on making your web site accomplish what should be its primary goal: conversion. Conversion can mean many things, depending on the purpose of your web site. Conversion can mean getting people to buy, getting leads to provide contact information, recruiting subscribers for an email list—even getting site visitors to spend more time on your site and [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Features: Book Reviews

The term "online visibility" usually refers to the visibility of sites on the web.  This column will discuss the online visibility of small and medium businesses (SMBs) and why it is harder to define, identify and measure SMB presence than web site visibility. Web site visibility consists of several relatively easy to measure features such as how well the site appears in search results on search engines or how many external links lead back to the website The online visibility of an SMB is more complex. For one thing, the way a website appears online is very conclusive: the site has an e [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Small Is Beautiful

Back when Terry Semel ran Yahoo, the web portal embarked on a grand Hollywood-style video strategy that was abandoned after Semel stepped down.  Now, with another change in CEOs, Yahoo is again reversing course and rolling out a new approach to web video. Carol Bartz is taking over from co-founder Jerry Yang, and among her first initiatives is a redo of Yahoo!'s approach to video.  Under Semel, Yahoo produced TV-like original series, but with little success.  The new plan calls for shorter and more targeted video series.  Among the new shows are "Spotlight to Nightlight," which will fe [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Video Search